Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

It would have been no laughing matter if the jester had ended up under the hooves of the horses. But Eel was alert: He grabbed Kli-Kli’s leg and pulled him back into the bushes.

“Relax, lad.”

“It was an accident.”

“That’s Paleface. The rider dressed all in black,” I explained. My hands were itching to let the killer have a crossbow bolt, but unfortunately I didn’t have my weapon with me. “Where are they going?”

“Ah, universal darkness! They’ll get away!” Eel exclaimed. “I swear on a dragon, they’ll get away!”

“And what if he has the Key?” I asked, pouring oil on the flames.

The horsemen rode off.

“Mumr, after them, quickly!” Eel ordered.

“But they’ve got horses!”

“And you’ve got legs! They won’t gallop through the city, you can see they’re riding slowly. Try to find out where they’re going.”

“All right,” said Lamplighter, spitting out his grass stalk. “I’ll try.”

“We have to let Markauz and Miralissa know,” said Eel, standing up and emerging from the bushes. “We still have a chance of intercepting them at the city gates.”

“There are a lot of gates,” Kli-Kli said doubtfully. “We’d better hurry.”

But we never got to the inn. Or rather, we weren’t allowed to. As soon as we reached the street we had walked up a few hours earlier, two men blocked our way. They were dressed in the modest clothes of craftsmen, with sullen faces and cold eyes. The lads looked very confident, and they had very good reason to be—each of them was holding a naked sword.

“It looks as though we were spotted at the manor after all,” I muttered, taking my dagger out of its sheath.

A dagger against a sword is like a crossbow against a ballista. I couldn’t speak for Eel, but I knew they would carve me into little pieces without the slightest trouble.

“Look behind us!” Kli-Kli squeaked.

Six men were approaching us from the rear. They were still quite a long way off, but each of them had a crossbow. And then I noticed that they hadn’t come out of the manor grounds—the gates were still closed. They had arrived in a huge carriage.

“They’re not Nightingales! They’re the Nameless One’s henchmen! We’ve been followed!”

Eel gave a low growl and pulled out his daggers.

“Harold, don’t stand there like a fool!” Kli-Kli hissed as he watched the men with crossbows approaching. “Have you got your bag of magic bits and pieces?”

“No, I left it with my crossbow and long dagger.”

The goblin groaned. “That’s the most foolish thing you could possibly have done!”

I didn’t argue with that.

Then suddenly I had a bright idea. I reached for my trump card—a magical vial full of potion. When it broke it should produce a flash, a loud boom, and smoke.

An absolutely useless little toy really, but I had got it for nothing, and I didn’t want to just throw away a magical vial. I’d never had a chance to try it out. I’d stopped carrying the flash-bang in my bag in order not to confuse it with the other vials, and after I put in the special pocket on my sleeve I’d forgotten all about it, because it weighed next to nothing.

“Close your eyes,” I yelled to my comrades, and flung the vial down at the swordsmen’s feet. There was a bright flash and a loud bang and a section of the street was hidden by thick, swirling white smoke. One of the men with swords cried out in fright.

“Stay behind me!” Eel ordered, and dashed at our stunned enemies in spite of their swords.

One of them was sitting on the ground in the smoke and rubbing his eyes in confusion. The lad had forgotten all about the sword that was lying a few steps away from him. The other one proved less timid. He swung rather clumsily and tried to slice Eel’s head off, but Eel ducked under his sword, blocking it with his left dagger, and thrust his right dagger into the swordsman’s neck.

The first lad was still sitting in the street rubbing his eyes, so I swung my foot and kicked him hard on the jaw. The would-be killer’s teeth clattered and he collapsed on the ground.

“Take the sword!” Eel told me as he picked up the sword of the man he had killed.

I handle a sword about as well as a baker handles the wheel of a royal frigate, but in this particular case I didn’t really have time to explain that to the Garrakian. As soon as the men with crossbows saw what had happened to their comrades, they broke into a run. Unfortunately my magical trick hadn’t impressed them, and they were running toward us, not away. The most impatient of them fired at us and the bolt scraped across the road dangerously close to Eel’s foot.

“They want to take us alive!” he growled.

“Follow me!” Kli-Kli squeaked, realizing that a spot where the air is filled with screaming crossbow bolts is not the right place for any respectable goblin to be.

The jester disappeared into the thick white smoke, I darted after him, and Eel covered our rear.

After ten steps, we broke out of the wall of smoke covering the street. The men with crossbows were firing without worrying about taking us alive anymore. The only reason our skins weren’t full of holes was that thick wall of smoke. One bolt whizzed past my head and thudded into the side of the wagon with the props under its wheels. Kli-Kli wanted to take a ride, didn’t he? It looked like his dream was about to come true.

“Harold, what was that stinking muck you tossed on the ground?” Eel asked me.

“A mere trifle that saved us a little unpleasantness! Stop, Kli-Kli!” I said, grabbing the goblin by the scruff of the neck. “Into the cart?”

“Don’t be a fool!”

“Ah, but I am! In you go, wise man.”

Without bothering to ask any questions, Eel tossed the protesting goblin into the cart. He realized that we couldn’t outrun the crossbow bolts. Another few seconds and our hides wouldn’t be worth a bent farthing. I jumped in after Kli-Kli.

“Harold, I hope you know what you’re doing!” he said. I think it was the first time I’d seen the jester frightened. Even during the attack on the royal palace by the followers of the Nameless One, or at Vishki, or in Hargan’s Wasteland, His Emerald Skinship had never turned that pale lettuce color.

With mighty blows Eel knocked out the wooden chocks that were holding the wagon in place, and it started rolling downhill. The cool-headed Garrakian even gave it a push, although that was quite unnecessary. The slope was steep enough, and our elegant vehicle was soon traveling at a terrifying speed.

“I-I-I th-think th-this was a b-bad id-deaa!” Kli-Kli stammered in fright as the wheels of the cart skipped and bounced over the stones of the street. He clung to the side of the cart with both hands, his eyes wide with terror as the houses rushed past.

People walking along the street jumped out of the way to avoid being crushed under the wheels, and rewarded us with choice obscenities and directions into the darkness.

Another bolt thudded into the back of the cart.

“Keep down!” Eel yelled, trying to shout above the rumbling of the wheels and the wind roaring in our ears.

We kept down. A deadly rain of crossbow bolts started falling on the back of the cart. Either there were a lot more pursuers than we thought or they were virtuoso marksmen. Not many of the king’s soldiers could fire and reload as fast as that.

But even so, Kli-Kli stuck his head up, looked ahead, and exclaimed, “Oi!”

At that moment either of the goblin’s eyes could have swallowed the moon. I was intrigued and decided I wanted to know what the wise man’s “Oi!” signified.

Sad to say, the street ran on for another hundred yards and then made a sharp turn to the left. So there was an extremely unpleasant little surprise in store for us—our wagon was hurtling straight toward the wall of a house.